About the Author:

Terry Gould was born in Akron, Ohio and spent his childhood in rural towns across Missouri before joining the Navy in 1968. Following a thirty-year career in business, Terry finally had the opportunity to write the story that haunted him for more than forty years. Through his story, How Can You Mend This Purple Heart, Terry hopes to inspire all Americans to recognize and honor the veterans of all
wars; but especially the veterans of the Vietnam War. For they truly deserve recognition, an unconditional recognition so long overdue, for their love of country, their commitment to duty and their unselfish sacrifices at a time when it was shamefully unappreciated. Terry now resides near Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Barb.

About the Book:

How Can You Mend This Purple Heart2009, 6x9, 236 Pages$14.95 Paperback$35.00 Hardcover with dust jacket To buy this book: www.purplescribe.com

It was early September, 1968, and like thousands of kids his age, Jeremy Shoff couldn’t wait to get the next four years of his young life out of the way. A few months earlier he had made a verbal commitment to join the Marines, and the jungles of Vietnam were waiting. But somewhere between the 2-S student deferment, the ensuing fist fight with his old man, and the love-making with his flower-child girlfriend, he gave up on the Marines. Jeremy Shoff settled for a four-year stint in the Navy. If he wasn’t going to Vietnam as a Marine, he may as well float around the world on some boat. On a warm, Maryland day in May, 1969, nine months after leaving home, the newly-graduated Navy radioman began packing his sea bag for the cruise of a lifetime. It would be eight months aboard a destroyer escort ship on a Goodwill Tour to the Red Sea; from Norfolk, Virginia to the French Riviera, with stops in every major port. Jeremy never made his cruise. His passion for celebrating led to a drunken collision with a concrete bridge abutment. Four days later, Jeremy Shoff regained consciousness in a Navy hospital where guilt planted its roots so deep he would vomit from the shame. Jeremy Shoff, a Navy party boy, thought he had a lot in common with the wounded Marines who shared his ward, Marines who could have been his comrades in combat. But as he would quickly realize, the only thing he had in common with them was their youth—and even that was an illusion. These boys, these men, had truly lost their youth sometime after gaining consciousness on their journey from South Vietnam to south Philadelphia.